Here, in the evening, amid the manifold smells of the day, the family
goes to its virtuous couch. That is to say, as many as possible pile
into the one bed (if bed they have), and the surplus turns in on the
floor. And this is the round of their existence, month after month, year
after year, for they never get a vacation save when they are evicted.
When a child dies, and some are always bound to die, since fifty-five per
cent. of the East End children die before they are five years old, the
body is laid out in the same room. And if they are very poor, it is kept
for some time until they can bury it. During the day it lies on the bed;
during the night, when the living take the bed, the dead occupies the
table, from which, in the morning, when the dead is put back into the
bed, they eat their breakfast. Sometimes the body is placed on the shelf
which serves as a pantry for their food. Only a couple of weeks ago, an
East End woman was in trouble, because, in this fashion, being unable to
bury it, she had kept her dead child three weeks.
Now such a room as I have described is not home but horror; and the men
and women who flee away from it to the public-house are to be pitied, not
blamed.
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